Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa

A website was launched yesterday after the news that the team of hackers, Impact Team, reportedly released the data off cheating website Ashley Madison. Trustify was launched for users to check if they were 'exposed' by the Ashley Madison leak.

At the time, it was reported that about 175 000 of the 32 million Ashley Madison website subscribers are South African.

A total of 9.7 gigabytes of data was reportedly stolen from the controversial website and posted on the 'dark web' - an encrypted section of the internet that requires a special browser to use.

In July, Ashley Madison’s Canadian parent, Avid Life Media, confirmed the breach on its systems and said that had since secured its site and was working with law enforcement agencies to try to trace those behind the attack.

Their problem seems to not have gone away though, despite their high tech security, they did not manage to avert or track down the hackers, who have now done good on their promise to breach the security.

Avid Life Media released a statement yesterday saying that they are actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online and will continue to devote significant resources to this effort. Furthermore, they will continue to put forth substantial efforts into removing any information unlawfully released to the public, as well as continuing to operate their business.

This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities.